Not So Bafflingly, Mossberg Pans a New Phone

Walter S. Mossberg can kill or redeem any electronics product just by a bad or good mention in his personal technology column in the WSJ. I cracked up when I read his review of the new Voyager phone from Verizon, which he wasn’t impressed with.

“In fact the Voyager, bafflingly, has several different user interfaces–two on the outer touch screen and an entirely different one on the inner screen above the keyboard that doesn’t work by touch at all. Some functions work only with the inner screen. Scrolling through lists is a halting, frustrating process compared with the smooth, slick scrolling on the iPhone.”

He continues, comparing how the two phones go into airplane mode, when you have to turn your ringer off. It takes two steps on the iphone but five steps on the Voyager. The phone doesn’t use ubiquitous WiFi, instead, relies on Verizon’s own 3G networks, and ‘the user interface is clumsy and confusing.” Ouch!

I would think that a company as smart at LG would be able to do a better job copying Apple’s software, or steal away someone who could better replicate what the iPhone does. But the heart of the problem is that the iPhone put a real Pc-grade operating system in their units, and the LG people had to bend to Verizon’s own less developed 3G.